Created by an elite team of Digital Storm technicians, DS Unlocked is an exclusive blog featuring useful and honest expert advice for enthusiasts and hardcore gamers. We'll be posting videos, articles, how-to guides, and reviews on the latest and greatest technology!

Nov182011

Battlefield 3 PC Gaming Performance Guide

Article Date: 2011-11-18By: Rajeev Kuruppu

The long awaited release of Battlefield 3 has arrived, and
after all the hype and anticipation, a lot of you have jumped in and purchased a
copy of one of the best PC games of the year.
A game that isn't a watered down console version like so many other PC games
nowadays; Battlefield 3 is an incredible first person shooter that was built
with hard-core PC gamers in mind.

So what kind of hardware do you need to get the absolutely
best Battlefield 3 experience possible? A lot really depends on what type of experience
YOU want. What do I mean? Well if you want to experience Battlefield 3 on its high
quality game setting playing on your 22" 1680x1050 resolution monitor, well
than a single NVIDIA GTX 570, like the one in Digital Storm's ODE Level 1, will
be plenty.

Knowing how YOU want to experience Battlefield 3 will
determine what the right hardware is for your gaming computer. To help you
along that path, DS Unlocked has created this guide to help you.

Battlefield 3 and
your Monitor's Native Resolution

One of the single biggest factors that are going to affect your
gaming experience is how you are going to view your game. Are you playing on a
17" 1280x1024 flat panel monitor or do you plan on playing Battlefield 3 on a
24" 1920x1080 monitor, or perhaps a mind blowing 30" 2560 x 1600 resolution!?

It's important to understand that the higher your monitor's
native resolution is the more graphical demand will be placed on your video
card(s). We also need to make a distinction between monitor resolution and
size, because they are not directly related.

What I mean is that you could have a 17" widescreen flat
panel monitor that offers a 1920x1080 resolution and it would require the same
graphical performance as its big 24" brother. Where this issue primarily comes
into play is when we PC gamers like to connect their gaming computer to a large
1080p flat panel TV.

Any TV that is 1080p has a native resolution of 1920x1080,
therefore you could have a 52" behemoth television that you may want to connect
to your gaming computer, but you're thinking you'll need some major horsepower
to drive that monster when in actuality you'll only need the same graphical
power that drives a 24" LCD monitor.

The other aspect we need to consider to complete the picture
of what hardware is going to provide you with the best Battlefield 3 experience
is what kind of game quality do you want when playing Battlefield 3.

There are four graphical quality settings available to
select from in the game, low, medium, high, and ultra, depending on the graphic
quality you desire, your gaming hardware is going to drastically change. With
your monitor/display native resolution in one hand and your gaming quality in
the other, we can exactly determine what type of hardware you'll need to get
the best playing experience possible.

The tables below provide the recommendations we suggest for
playing Battlefield 3 based on your native resolution and game quality. They also
take into account that you want to achieve a silky smooth 60 frames per second
during gameplay. The reason we settle on 60 FPS is because at any FPS higher
than that the human eye cannot gauge a difference in quality. The absolutely
smoothest and silkiest performance is when you can play your game at a
consistent 60 FPS.

Let's begin, if you wanted to play Battlefield 3 on low
quality then you'll need the following graphics cards for the corresponding
native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 - Low Quality

Native
Resolution

Graphics
Card

1680x1050

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti

1920x1080

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti

2560x1600

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti

To play Battlefield 3 on High Quality then you'll need the
following graphics cards for the corresponding native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 – High Quality

Native
Resolution

Graphics
Card

1680x1050

NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti

1920x1080

NVIDIA GTX 570

2560x1600

NVIDIA GTX 590

To play Battlefield 3 on Ultra Quality then you'll need the
following graphics cards for the corresponding native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 – Ultra Quality

Native
Resolution

Graphics
Card

1680x1050

NVIDIA GTX 580

1920x1080

SLI NVIDIA GTX 570s

2560x1600

SLI NVIDIA GTX 580s

If
you wanted to get a visual idea of the differences between the types quality
available on Battlefield 3 check out he pic below:

With these tables you can easily determine the correct
graphics card(s) for your monitor and the type of gameplay you want to enjoy
with your copy of Battlefield 3. Check out Digital Storm's gaming computers page
if you want to get an idea of the type of cost of these upgrades or how much it
would cost to purchase a brand new pc.

Remember that games like Battlefield 3 don't come around
often, and if you really want to have the best experience possible then follow
this guide and you'll be able to rock Battlefield 3 with the flawless
uninterrupted graphical goodness it was meant to be played in.